What needs to be enabled for the speech to text (STT) microphone to work on an Android virtual keyboard?

[Arlen Holder]

What needs to be enabled for the speech to text (STT) microphone to work on
an Android virtual keyboard?

I have 8 virtual keyboards on my Android 10 Moto G7
o Three of which have a microphone icon for speech-to-text

o Fonts (no mic button)
o Gboard (the mic button works perfectly)
o Grammarly (no mic button)
o Hacker's Keyboard (the mic button doesn't work at all)
o Keepass2Android (no mic button)
o English (US) Openboard (the mic button doesn't work at all)
o English (US) Simple Keyboard (no mic button)
o SwiftKey Keyboard (no mic button)

Everything else in all the keyboards works.
o Only the mic doesn't work in two of the keyboards with the mic

There is no error anywhere when the mic doesn't work
o It has always been this way since I installed the keyboards

Is there something _else_ that needs to be enabled for the mic to work?

[Alan Baker]

Sure...

Get an iPhone and it just works!

[The Real Bev]

You're really evil, Alan!

Personally, I like the AI Type keyboard with the EZ somethingorother layout.

--
Cheers, Bev
He's your god. They're your rules. *You* burn in hell!

[Alan Baker]

On 2020-11-21 9:53 a.m., The Real Bev wrote:
> On 11/21/2020 08:31 AM, Alan Baker wrote:
>> On 2020-11-20 8:36 p.m., Arlen Holder wrote:
>>>
>>> There is no error anywhere when the mic doesn't work
>>> o It has always been this way since I installed the keyboards
>>>
>>> Is there something _else_ that needs to be enabled for the mic to work?
>>>
>>
>> Sure...
>>
>> Get an iPhone and it just works!
>
> You're really evil, Alan!

Yeah... ...but I'm cute!

[kelown]

On 11/20/2020 10:36 PM, Arlen Holder wrote:

> o Hacker's Keyboard (the mic button doesn't work at all)

The mic on my Hacker's Keyboard launches the native Google voice typing
app and works fine. Perhaps your anti-Google tweaks have something to do
with it?

[Arlen Holder]

On Sat, 21 Nov 2020 09:53:05 -0800, The Real Bev wrote:

> You're really evil, Alan!

Hi The Real Bev,

If you don't know, this creep, Alan Baker is one of the very few people
I've plonked because he constantly stalks me, just like Snit did, simply
because he has no adult tools to deal with the fact he's always wrong:
o <https://youtu.be/7QaABa6DFIo>

People like Alan Baker & Jolly Roger are "wowed" by MARKETING bullshit.
o They are the creepy cultists who follow you around the Internet

He's one of those people that are literally too stupid to realize how
stupid they are, so he sniffs my asscrack around the Internet, like a
lovesick puppy, just as Snit did, trying to get me to talk to him.

Please do realize, that his IQ, I estimate, can't be higher than 40 or 50.
o Proof abounds, but just _look_ at what he posted in this one thread:

Who on earth is _this_ fantastically incredibly stupid, but Alan Baker?
o *Iron-clad proof apologists like Alan Baker are shockingly ignorant*
<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/misc.phone.mobile.iphone/EiNl6hyMBDo>

What's scary about people like Alan Baker isn't so much that they're too
stupid to realize how stupid they are, nor that they stalk me around the
Internet smelling my asscrack like a lovesick puppy, but that they're so
Dunning Kruger Quadrant 1 that they actually think they own a normal IQ.
--
It's petrifyingly scary people like Alan Baker are allowed to vote.

[Arlen Holder]

On Sun, 22 Nov 2020 08:31:04 -0600, kelown wrote:

>> o Hacker's Keyboard (the mic button doesn't work at all)
>
> The mic on my Hacker's Keyboard launches the native Google voice typing
> app and works fine. Perhaps your anti-Google tweaks have something to do
> with it?

Hi kelown,

Thank you for your purposefully helpful information that the hacker's
keyboard mic likely launches a google speech-to-text API of some sort.
o <https://i.postimg.cc/9FmRKqnz/stt01.jpg>

I hadn't thought about it, but I guess they _all_ use the Google STT API,
where, for sure, I must have multiple scores of anti-Google settings, any
one of which could be blocking their access to the SST API (perhaps GSF?).

It's interesting that the Google Gboard is the only mic that works for SST,
but it could simply be that Gboard uses either a built-in API, or, it could
be that Gboard calls a private SST API, or that it calls the public SST API
differently than do the other virtual keyboard apps.

Running a subsequent search, I find your hint is likely correct:
o How to integrate Android Speech To Text?
<https://www.tutorialspoint.com/how-to-integrate-android-speech-to-text>
"Intent intent = new Intent(RecognizerIntent.ACTION_RECOGNIZE_SPEECH);
intent.putExtra(RecognizerIntent.EXTRA_LANGUAGE_MODEL,
RecognizerIntent.LANGUAGE_MODEL_FREE_FORM);

See also:
o How to create a simple dictation app
<https://www.androidauthority.com/converting-speech-to-text-voice-dictation-app-976732/>
o Android: Speech To Text using API
<https://www.viralpatel.net/android-speech-to-text-api/>

What I "might" do, to test this out, is try to integrate that myself:
o Report: My first "hello world" using Android Studio freeware
<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.comp.freeware/qEqThtRwZAg>

It would be a lot of work just to debug a keyboard though, but I might get
more information about what 3rd-party keyboards do differently than Gboard.

Btw, there appear to be _two_ Speech-to-Text "services", based on this:
o Android – Enable Speech-to-Text (Voice Input) Keyboard Feature
<https://www.ryadel.com/en/android-speech-to-text-voice-input-keyboard-feature-enable-setup/>]
1. Enhanced Google Service
2. Basic Google Recognition

Which also claims a "Google app" must be running for STT to work:
"The first thing that you should check is that the Google App
is up and running, because it's required for the speech-to-text
feature to be available"

Checking with "App Manager" (which is _great_ by the way!), I
see I have it permanently disabled - so I need to experiment a bit.
o <https://i.postimg.cc/9FmRKqnz/stt01.jpg>

For example, this guy sought an Android keyboard with STT outside GSF:
o Android keyboard with speech-to-text that does not use Google services
<https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/26732/android-keyboard-with-speech-to-text-that-does-not-use-google-services>

That quest led, partly to this app with internal speech-to-text code:
o Speech to Text Keyboard - Voice to Text Typing, by Innovative World
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.language.English.voicekeyboard.chat>
"This voice typing keyboard uses a built-in speech recognition
method which turns your speech to text."
However, after installing & pressing the red mic button, it errored:
"Your system don't support speech input" [sic]

In addition to that (failed) app, that quest led to Dragon STT software:
o <https://www.nuance.com/dragon.html>

Where I had recently run into Dragon in the Windows newsgroup:
o Recommended Speech-to-Text (STT) Windows freeware to transcribe a YouTube audio stream to text?
<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.comp.microsoft.windows/zzLfgMs0AKc>

In summary, I think you're correct, given I have most Google services
disabled, where I guess I can stoop so low as to temporarily enable some of
these Google services just to test if that's what's killing the STT API.
--
App Manager is fantastic!
o <io.github.muntashirakon.AppManager> [mine is version 2.5.17 (368)]

[Alan Baker]

On 2020-11-22 3:06 p.m., Arlen Holder wrote:
> On Sat, 21 Nov 2020 09:53:05 -0800, The Real Bev wrote:
>
>> You're really evil, Alan!
>
> Hi The Real Bev,
>
> If you don't know, this creep, Alan Baker is one of the very few people

> I've plonked because...

...I consistently prove you're full of it?

:-)

[Arlen Holder]

On Mon, 23 Nov 2020 00:01:48 -0000 (UTC), Arlen Holder wrote:

> In summary, I think you're correct, given I have most Google services
> disabled, where I guess I can stoop so low as to temporarily enable some of
> these Google services just to test if that's what's killing the STT API.

Hi kelown,

Android10:Settings > Apps & notifications > See all 545 apps > Google
o <com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox>

When I switched "Google <com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox>" from
being permanently "Disabled" to "Enabled", the Tap-to-Speek "beep"
instantly returned to the Hacker's Keyboard, but the STT still didn't work.

By switching <com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox> from Enable to
Disable back and forth, I could reliably reproduce that empirical result.

The same thing happened with every virtual keyboard with a mic
o With the exception of Gboard SST - which works _without_ "Google".

Hence, only part of the Speech-to-Text in the Hacker's Keyboard makes use
of "Google <com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox>" being "Enabled".

There must be another of the many Google services, which I will look for.
o Note that I've disabled almost everything "google" that I can!